Wednesday, September 10, 2008

"Make no mistake about this," Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), Democratic vice presidential nominee, told an audience member at a Wednesday rally in Nashua, New Hampshire, "Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be Vice President of the United States of America."

The audience member, as ABC News reported, had told Biden that he was glad Biden was chosen over Senator Clinton (D-NY) as Senator Obama's (D-IL) running mate "not because she's a woman, but because, look at the things she did in the past."

"She's a truly close personal friend, she is qualified to be president of the United States of America," Biden went on. "She's easily qualified to be Vice President of the United States of America, and quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me. But she's first rate--I mean that sincerely--she's first rate, so let's get that straight."

Meh, well...good with the bad, ya know. Kinda...umm...geez Joe...well, at least he wasn't talking about Sarah Palin at the time.

Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties engaged in illicit sex with employees of energy companies they were dealing with and received numerous gifts from them, federal investigators said Wednesday.

The alleged transgressions involve 13 Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington. Their alleged improprieties include rigging contracts, working part-time as private oil consultants, and having sexual relationships with - and accepting golf and ski trips and dinners from - oil company employees, according to three reports released Wednesday by the Interior Department’s inspector general.

The investigations reveal a “culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” by a small group of individuals “wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards,” wrote Inspector General Earl E. Devaney.

The reports describe a fraternity house atmosphere inside the Denver Minerals Management Service office responsible for marketing the oil and gas that energy companies barter to the government instead of making cash royalty payments for drilling on federal lands. The government received $4.3 billion in such Royalty-in-Kind payments last year. The oil is then resold to energy companies or put in the nation’s emergency stockpile.

Between 2002 and 2006, nearly a third of the 55-person staff in the Denver office received gifts and gratuities from oil and gas companies, the investigators found.

Devaney said the former head of the Denver Royalty-in-Kind office, Gregory W. Smith, used illegal drugs and had sex with subordinates. The report said Smith also steered government contracts to a consulting business that was employing him part-time.

But another former Clinton adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the “Obama people have got to be kicking themselves” for not putting choosing Clinton as his No. 2.

Julia Piscitelli of the American University’s Women and Politics Institute agreed.

“I don’t think Palin would be seeing these kind of gains if Hillary was on the ticket,” she said. “When Obama picked Biden, it gave Republicans an opening, and they are taking full advantage of it. ... The question is: How long will it last?”

The answer, some Democrats say, is not long.

“I don’t think this is a real swing [in the polls] until it’s been a week, said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), one of Obama’s busiest female surrogates. “We’ll need to see whether Sarah Palin is willing to answer questions. ... No one will be a stronger advocate for Barack Obama and Joe Biden than Hillary Clinton.”

After all, "We should have gone with Hillary" is the tailor-made excuse for Plan 2012.

One of the interesting aspects of this campaign is watching the scales fall from the eyes of many of John McCain's closest admirers among the veteran DC press corps. I'm not talking about the freaks on Fox News or any of the sycophants at the AP. I'm talking about, let's say, the better sort of reporters and commentators in the 45 to 65 age bracket. To the extent that the press was McCain's base (and in many though now sillier respects it still is) this was the base of the base. And talking to a number of them I can understand why that was, at least in the sense of the person he was then presenting himself as.

But over the last ... maybe six weeks, in various conversations with these folks, the change is palpable. Whether it will make any difference in the tone of coverage in the dominant media I do not know. But it is sinking in.

All politicians stretch the truth, massage it into the best fit with their message. But, let's face it, John McCain is running a campaign almost entirely based on straight up lies. Not just exaggerations or half truths but the sort of straight up, up-is-down mind-blowers we've become so accustomed to from the current occupants of the White House. And today McCain comes out with this rancid, race-baiting ad based on another lie. Willie Horton looks mild by comparison. (And remember, President George H.W. Bush never ran the Willie Horton ad himself. It was an outside group. He wasn't willing to degrade himself that far.) As TPM Reader JMsaid below, at least Horton actually was released on a furlough. This is ugly stuff. And this is an ugly person. There's clearly no level of sleaze this guy won't stoop to to win this election.

We always knew race was going to be part of McSame's arsenal. Too many "low-infromation" voters are simply not going to vote for Obama based on the many lies being tood about them, but as I've said on a number of occasions the purpose of these lies are to give cover for racism. It's unfortunate that McSame has stooped to this level, but really not surprising. The campaign doesn't have anything going for it other than dog-whistle racism and lies. There's nothing positive about it, what the McSame campaign is actually advocating for, even the positive bits are about establishing as much government control over our lives as possible, and fomenting new and better wars.

It's Bush without the the 8 years of realpolitik. Yes, compared to McSame and Palin, Bush is the very model of restraint. McSame is actually right when he says he's not Bush.

He's much, much worse: Bush without the blinders on and fully aware of what he intends to violate.

Case in point on the Bridge to Nowhere lie: When called out on it, lie more. It worked for Bush on everything. Lie. When somebody calls you on it, lie more. McSame as Bush.

Mrs. Palin also killed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere in her own state. Yes, she once supported the project: But after witnessing the problems created by earmarks for her state and for the nation's budget, she did what others like me have done: She changed her position and saved taxpayers millions. Even the Alaska Democratic Party credits her with killing the bridge.

See this? This is a lie. She didn't save taxpayers a dime because SHE KEPT ALL $223 MILLION. She just didn't spend it on the bridge. She just took the pork.

But it doesn't matter. Republicans can lie all day. When they are challenged, the liberal media is smearing them, and to go back to lying. This is how our country works.

It looks like more than one prominent Georgia Republican likes to use the word "uppity" in regards to prominent African-Americans -- this time, it's the GOP nominee in one of the few House seats that Dems could possibly lose this year.

The Atlanta Journal Constitutionreports that Rick Goddard, a retired Air Force major general running against conservative Dem Congressman Jim Marshall, referred in a radio appearance to "a very uppity newscaster" who had a testy TV exchange with Newt Gingrich at the Republican Convention. This appeared to be a reference to MSNBC reporter Ron Allen, who is black.

The Goddard campaign didn't deny that he was discussing Ron Allen, telling the Journal-Constitution that Goddard "simply evoked a word -- that by definition -- described the reporter's demeanor as being superior, arrogant and presumptuous."

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With Republicans controlling the House and Senate and the Trump Regime now in charge of the Executive, there's still a crumbling global economy imperiling the world, rising nationalism and deadly racism across Europe and Asia, a seemingly endless war against terror, a federal government nobody trusts or believes in, global climate change putting us on the brink of destruction and a Village media that barely does its job on even the best day.

Needless to say there's a lot of Stupid out there when we need solutions. Dangerous levels of Stupid.

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